As Beauty New York gears up for its inaugural iteration, the consumer-facing event is also preparing to honor New York’s industry heavyweights.

At the Oct. 16 launch party for Beauty New York, which will kick off the consumer-facing event in The Oculus, Beauty New York will be honoring five separate parties with various honorings.

Receiving the Impact in Beauty Journalism is WWD executive beauty editor and Beauty Inc editor in chief Jenny B. Fine. Unilever will nab Impact in Sustainability Leadership. Nimrod Basri, on behalf of Make USA, is taking home the Impact in Building Beauty with Purpose award, Macy’s Inc. is recognized for Impact in Beauty Retail, and Fashion Institute of Technology’s Stephan Kanlian, chair of the master’s program in Cosmetics and Fragrance Marketing and Management, is winning Impact in Shaping Future Leaders.

“When I think of the Impact Awards and the launch party, I started telling my team of how uncompromising this vision should be. This isn’t pay-to-play,” said Liza Rapay, founder of Beauty New York and vice president and head of Cosmoprof North America. “This is something that’s been curated, well-thought-of, who deserves which awards. Profit will follow purpose. And I went back to what our main mission and vision is, which is to elevate the beauty industry, to push it forward and to inspire. For the Impact Awards, all of the recipients embody that.”

Rapay sought to address the key drivers of the industry today. “I wish I could give 10 awards,” she said, “I want to make sure they’re purposeful. And it’s a time for the industry to get together and network and celebrate. I wanted to ensure the ecosystem of beauty is represented. It isn’t just big corporations, for instance. Everything aligns with our mission and vision.”

Although Rapay felt many professionals deserved awards, she had a clear rationale for each recipient. In the case of Macy’s, she said, “When I start looking at retailers around for a long time, they have seen the ups and downs of New York City for decades. They’re an institution. And they’re such a big part of beauty,” she said, pointing to the Thanksgiving Day Parade and Fourth of July fireworks as examples. “They’re a big part of beauty, and of New York City.”

For WWD and Beauty Inc’s Jenny B. Fine, “Everyone trusts her,” Rapay said. “Telling our stories over and over for many years, and being a real leader — Jenny deserves it, no questions asked.”

On the sustainability front, “This was the hardest one for me,” Rapay said, noting how heavily many companies invest in those initiatives. “For Unilever, it’s always been one of their pillars.”

Stephan Kanlian, Rapay said, “helped me stay with who I am, helped me get the tools that I needed, the confidence to continue to move forward. We think about pushing the industry forward, and he’s doing this by training the next generation of leaders.”

Make USA’s honoring, she said, comes from the company operating without minimum order quantities. “They remove barriers of getting to launch a brand,” Rapay said. “And of the 700 people that work for him, most of them are [formerly] incarcerated folks or live in halfway houses. I remember telling [Basri] that he gives people second chances, and he told me, ‘These aren’t second chances, they’re often the first chance.’”

The announcement comes at the same time as a groundswell of interest in Beauty New York, which currently entails 32 brands. “We are now in the middle of selling tickets,” Rapay said, having sold out a record number of tickets on the Today Show. “When you compare it to Cosmoprof, we sell 40 percent of tickets in the 10 days prior.”